Latina workers have to work 10 months into 2018 to be paid the same as white non-Hispanic men in 2017

November 1 is Latina Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how long into 2018 a Latina would have to work in order to be paid the same wages her white male counterpart was paid last year. That’s just over 10 months longer, meaning that Latina workers had to work all of 2017 and then this far—to November 1!—into 2018 to get paid the same as white non-Hispanic men did in 2017. Put another way, a Latina would have to be in the workforce for 55 years to earn what a non-Hispanic white man would earn after 30 years in the workforce. Unfortunately, Hispanic women are subject to a double pay gap—an ethnic pay gap and a gender pay gap.

The date November 1 is based on the finding that Hispanic women workers are paid 54 cents on the white non-Hispanic male dollar, using the 2016 March Current Population Survey for median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers. We get similar results when we look at hourly wages for all workers (not just full-time workers) using the monthly Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group for 2017—which show Hispanic women workers being paid 58 cents on the white male dollar.

This gap narrows—but not dramatically—when we control for education, years of experience, and location by regression-adjusting the differences between workers. Using this method, we find that, on average, Latina workers are paid only 66 cents on the dollar relative to white non-Hispanic men.

The wage gap between Latina workers and white non-Hispanic male workers persists across the wage distribution, within occupations, and among those with the same amount of education. Figure A below shows wages for Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men at select points in their respective wage distributions. The 10th percentile Latina wage identifies the wage at which 10 percent of Latina workers earn less while 90 percent of Latina workers earn more. At the 10th percentile, Latina workers are paid $8.94 per hour, or 84 percent of the white male wage at the 10th percentile ($10.63 per hour). This wage gap—16 percent—is the smallest the gap gets, likely due to the wage floor set by the minimum wage. The gap rises to 40 percent at the middle of the wage distribution, and to 52 percent at the 95th percentile. That means that even the best paid Latinas are paid half as much as the best paid white non-Hispanic men.

Latinas are, thus, vastly over-represented in low-wage jobs and relatively under-represented in high-wage jobs. In fact, Latinas’ median wages are just about those of white men’s 20th percentile wage. In other words, half of all Latina workers are paid less than the 20th percentile white male worker. Meanwhile, by comparing the white male median to the 80th percentile Latinas’ wages, you can see that more than half of white men are paid over $22 an hour while only 20 percent of Latinas are. At the high end, only about one in 20 Latina workers are paid more than white male workers at the 80th percentile.

Much of these differences are grounded in the presence of occupational segregation. Latina workers are far more likely to be found in certain low-wage professions than white men are (and less common in high-wage professions). But, even in professions with more Latina workers, they still are paid less on average than their white male colleagues. Figure B shows the average wages of Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men in the ten most common occupations for Latinas. In every one of them, white men, on average, are paid more than their Latina counterparts.

Figure B

Average wages of Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men by the ten most populous occupations for Hispanic women

Since Hispanic women continue to be over-represented in low-wage jobs, policies that lift wages at the bottom will have a significant impact on their wages. An increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would affect more than one in five Latina workers.

While some (incorrectly) argue that Latinas are choosing lower-paid professions, further education clearly does not close their sizable wage gaps with white non-Hispanic men. Figure C shows average wages for white men and Latinas in 2017. As Hispanic women increase their educational attainment, their pay gap with white men actually increases. The largest dollar gap (more than $15 an hour), occurs for workers with more than a college degree. Even Hispanic women with an advanced degree earn less than white men who only have a bachelor’s degree. That statistic bears repeating. White non-Hispanic men with only a college degree are paid, on average, $6.64 more than Latinas with an advanced degree!

Figure C

Hispanic women earn less than white non-Hispanic men at every education level: Average hourly wages, by gender, race, and education, 2017

Regardless of their place in the wage distribution, their level of educational attainment, or their occupation, Latinas are paid less than their white male counterparts. Additional EPI research on the Hispanic-white wage gap includes analysis of immigrant status and country of origin. Looking at only full-time workers in a regression framework, Marie T. Mora and Alberto Dávila find that Latina workers are paid 67 percent on the white non-Hispanic male dollar (a 33 percent pay penalty). Accounting for immigrant status, the pay penalty improves slightly to 30 percent and is wider among first generation immigrants (39 percent) than second (29 percent) or third or higher generation (31 percent).

No matter how you slice the data, it is clear that there is a lot of work to be done to improve the standard of living for the families of Latinas. More educational attainment and access to better quality education would certainly help to improve the Latinas’ chances to move up the job ladder and get better paid jobs. However, this is not the whole story, since even after controlling for education the wage gap remains very large. Offering and facilitating access to occupations that are higher paid will also move Latinas up the occupational ladder. Here too, however, we find that even within the same occupations, Latinas fare worse. Lastly, it is important to improve equal pay for equal work provisions so that those women who do have the same education, the same occupation and are equally qualified in the workplace are not paid less or driven away from moving up to these more challenging positions.

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EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.